Life at Elon's beach — with some basketball mixed in

Published: Friday, November 16, 2012 at 06:27 PM.

ELON — The significance of the colorful surfboard that Sebastian Koch and Lucas Troutman have toted around campus splashes down this weekend at Elon University.

For two days and four games, Alumni Gym serves as the regional host site for the mainland teams participating in the Maui Invitational.

So before ESPN broadcasts the more renowned portion of the tournament from the distinctive Lahaina Civic Center on the second-largest Hawaiian island, surf’s up at Elon, too.

“Everybody wants to go to Hawaii. That’s a nice place,” Koch said. “But it’s also cool here at Elon. We’ll make our own little tournament here and have a good time.”

It’s cowabunga, indeed, from a Phoenix perspective.

Elon coach Matt Matheny said he and athletics director Dave Blank had discussed figuring out how to land such an event since March 2009, when he was interviewing for the job and technically still an assistant coach at Davidson.

“It’s great for us. It’s great for our program,” Matheny said. “There’s not many mid-major schools that get the opportunity to host a tournament. And it’s not just any tournament. It’s affiliated with what I think is the best exempt tournament in the country.”

ELON — The significance of the colorful surfboard that Sebastian Koch and Lucas Troutman have toted around campus splashes down this weekend at Elon University.

For two days and four games, Alumni Gym serves as the regional host site for the mainland teams participating in the Maui Invitational.

So before ESPN broadcasts the more renowned portion of the tournament from the distinctive Lahaina Civic Center on the second-largest Hawaiian island, surf’s up at Elon, too.

“Everybody wants to go to Hawaii. That’s a nice place,” Koch said. “But it’s also cool here at Elon. We’ll make our own little tournament here and have a good time.”

It’s cowabunga, indeed, from a Phoenix perspective.

Elon coach Matt Matheny said he and athletics director Dave Blank had discussed figuring out how to land such an event since March 2009, when he was interviewing for the job and technically still an assistant coach at Davidson.

“It’s great for us. It’s great for our program,” Matheny said. “There’s not many mid-major schools that get the opportunity to host a tournament. And it’s not just any tournament. It’s affiliated with what I think is the best exempt tournament in the country.”

The 6-foot-8 Koch and 6-10 Troutman then took promotional turns with the full-sized board, outings which, of course, became conversation starters.

Koch carried it from his astronomy class to his strategic writing class and almost whacked somebody while navigating his way into the McEwen communications building.

“It was all right, though, because nothing happened,” he said. “So the surfboard sat with me in class and got a little lesson in strategic writing. But overall people were just staring, wondering why this guy was carrying a surfboard in the fall.”

Children flocked to pose for photos with Troutman when he brought out the board for appearances at two of Elon’s home football games.

“They thought it was funny that the surfboard’s actually taller than me,” Troutman said. “It’s been fun. We’ve been enjoying it and we want to be able to enjoy the moment even more by coming out and playing hard.”

On the court, there should be evenly matched competition with Colgate of the Patriot League, Coppin State of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and Florida Atlantic of the Sun Belt joining Elon of the Southern Conference.

Those leagues were similarly ranked at the end of last season, from positions 19 to 23 in the Ratings Percentage Index for conferences.

“And it’s in a tournament format,” Matheny said. “You can’t ask for much more than that this early in the season.”

Just don’t expect Matheny, Elon’s Big Kahuna, to show up decked out in a Hawaiian shirt like the coaches will be sporting in Maui.

He clearly prefers wearing suits on the sideline and was coy on the matter when asked.

“I can’t see him in a Hawaiian shirt,” Troutman said.

“He’s big on looking sharp,” Koch said. “So I think he’s going to be in a suit.”

OK, Coach, what say you?

“Um,” Matheny said, pausing to sip a Diet Coke, “we’re looking forward to a great weekend of basketball.”